Children’s Views Not in the News: Portrayal of Children in South African Print Media 2009

This report, published by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), is designed to encourage professional and ethical reporting on children by outlining and discussing some of the most recent findings from a study on children’s representation in the South African media, as monitored from May 17 to August 30 2009. Monitoring conducted by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) in 2003 as part of the Empowering Children & the Media (ECM) strategy, showed that only 6% of all news included children. According to the report, the latest data reveals that representation of children has improved, marginally, to 8.4% of all news monitored in 2009. The monitoring shows that not only are children’s issues frequently sidelined, but un-careful and unethical reporting often leads to further violations of their rights.

MMA monitored thirteen of South Africa’s major news publications for content on children. Daily and weekly newspapers were standardised to produce the same monitoring result. Of a total of 25 055 monitored stories, 2,107 (8.4 % of all news) dealt with children. MMA applied its Media Rating System (MRS) method used to highlight the best performing media during elections as well as reporting gender- based violence and developed one specifically for reporting on children and the media to enable individual media performance to be evaluated. The DRIVE (Diversity, Rights, Issues, Voices, Ethics) criteria was used to rate the monitored newspapers on their representation of children and their issues.

Some of the key findings to emerge from the research are outlined in the report as follows:

• Children are significantly underrepresented in the media – only 8.4% of stories monitored dealt with children and their issues, although children account for between 37 and 40% of South Africa’s population.
• Even where children are the subject of news stories, their voices are rarely heard. Of the 8.4% children’s stories, only 42% actually refer to children as sources. Of these 42% child sources, a mere 21% are eventually quoted (directly or indirectly).
• For every story on children, on average 1.28 children are involved or consulted. This has more than halved since 2003.
• Journalists very seldom approach children directly (9%). In most cases, children are either just referred to, often by age only (42%), only photographed (24%), only named (14%), or photographed and named (11%).
• Very few articles on children are indepth analyses or features (8%). The vast majority of stories on children fall within the category of (hard) news (62%), which leaves little room for addressing children’s concerns.
• 3% of stories monitored clearly violated the rights of the children in those stories – either by being directly or indirectly identified when it was clearly not in the child’s best interests to be identified. It is positive to note that this figure has reduced significantly from 10% of items on children that were monitored in 2003.
• Children’s rights are often outweighed by the need for catchy headlines and enticing copy. Whilst headlines appear to respect children’s rights, in 62%
  of the cases only 39% of the actual stories clearly made efforts to respect or reinforce children’s rights. Collectively, the headline, copy, and photos clearly considered children’s rights in only 3% of all stories on children.
• Education, child abuse, and crime are the three most reported on topics, collectively comprising 34% of all child news stories. This enforces the representation of children predominantly in roles of "victim" or "student."
• Representation of children by race and gender appears to reflect the status quo quite closely. Boys and girls are represented almost equally and black children make up the majority of children mentioned. This appears to have improved considerably since 2003 when results indicated an overrepresentation of boys and white children. However, representation of race and gender still lends itself to stereotyping.
• Whilst The Times scored highest in terms of the quantity of stories on children published (15.25%), the Saturday Star was rated highest in a qualitative
  assessment of its representation of children (as evaluated with the DRIVE criteria).

According to the report, the research suggests that coverage of children in the news is guided predominantly by perceptions of the story’s news value. Thus children are frequently reported on in crime and abuse stories or in the context of health and education. They also tend to be written about only when something dramatic (and often tragic) has happened to them – effectively, when they have "made the news." This means they are usually already in a vulnerable position and are then often further subjected to exploitation by the media as their stories are made public knowledge.

The report makes the following suggestions for how media can further contribute to children’s issues and rights:

• Reporters should be encouraged to generate stories about children – rather than relying on traditional shocking or otherwise "newsworthy" events to happen before covering children’s issues.
• When writing about children, journalists should engage with them as much as possible – and at the same time exercise extreme caution in dealing with children whose rights have been violated.
• The media should help realise children’s right to participation as guaranteed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by talking to children. Not only will talking and listening to children give them a sense of involvement in their own story, it will also enrich the final story. Moreover, only quoting a child is not likely to expose their identity and there are many creative ways to take anonymous photographs. Ultimately, this will add depth and substance to the story and make it more interesting to read.
• Wherever possible, stories about children should be accompanied with additional information that might educate and empower readers and children in particular.
• Every story on children should be considered an opportunity to raise awareness about children’s rights.
• News rooms should be encouraged to adopt MMA’s guidelines on reporting on children that have been developed with children and journalists.
• Children are involved in a diversity of exciting and interesting activities. Many of these will make for equally exciting and interesting stories.
• Not only is supporting children in the best interest of a society, but most adults have children and therefore are interested in children’s issues.